Supbeam K50 V2 Mod Thread

[Old-Lumens]

My opinion is that so far, most everyone who has soldered braid in the springs, ends up with a bad battery holder.

I think that it's an either or:

1- Either it can't take the additional amps and components are frying or shorting.

2.- Or, there's something very heat sensitive, that shorts out when soldering the braid in.

I don't think this light can be successfully modded and be safe or dependable.

Suckbeam would not let me buy another battery carrier, because I modified their light. Of course, that wasn't the real reason, but still...

[Mohl]

@Old-Lumens

My opinion is that so far, most everyone who has soldered braid in the springs, ends up with a bad battery holder.

I think that it’s an either or:

1- Either it can’t take the additional amps and components are frying or shorting.

2.- Or, there’s something very heat sensitive, that shorts out when soldering the braid in.

I don’t think this light can be successfully modded and be safe or dependable.

Suckbeam would not let me buy another battery carrier, because I modified their light. Of course, that wasn’t the real reason, but still…

I am also having a hard time getting Bella to sell me a replacement carrier. I keep getting the run around because the light has been modded. I told her I did not expect it to be replaced under warrany, and that I would gladly purchase a carrier and they still won’t do it. Oh well, time to see if someone is interested in drawing up some Oshpark (spelling correct?) boards so we can build our own.

[ryansoh3]

@Mohl

I am also having a hard time getting Bella to sell me a replacement carrier. I keep getting the run around because the light has been modded. I told her I did not expect it to be replaced under warrany, and that I would gladly purchase a carrier and they still won’t do it. Oh well, time to see if someone is interested in drawing up some Oshpark (spelling correct?) boards so we can build our own.

Do you still need the charging circuitry?

If not, can you simply solder the battery carrier to be in series with the clicky switch?

[LSX]

@ryansoh3

@Mohl

I am also having a hard time getting Bella to sell me a replacement carrier. I keep getting the run around because the light has been modded. I told her I did not expect it to be replaced under warrany, and that I would gladly purchase a carrier and they still won’t do it. Oh well, time to see if someone is interested in drawing up some Oshpark (spelling correct?) boards so we can build our own.

Do you still need the charging circuitry?

If not, can you simply solder the battery carrier to be in series with the clicky switch?

If someone could do up a diagram which I could follow to convert the battery carrier to not use any of the charging circuit I would be greatful. I would like the components in the tail to be as simple as possible. On another note am I right in thinking that as far as operating the light goes the only spring which is needed is the larger one on the outside of the board?

[Mohl]

Well minutes after I posted that Supbeam would not sell me a carrier, I got an email from Bella saying a carrier is $20 and $16 to ship. I’m not even going to put it in the light as a stock carrier. All of the charging circuitry will be stripped off and I will try to make it as simple and hopefully reliable as possible.

[itsonlyme]

You have mistaken what the “unlimited floor life” means. That refers to the storage of the chip itself before it is sold to a customer.

For example, the food in your fridge has a limited shelf life, after that, it starts to degrade generally.

@ryansoh3

@Slewflash

This will be interesting. If someone decides to push their XM-L2 above 8.5A they sacrifice reliability and longevity. Note that he didn’t drive the LED for 20 minutes at each interval, but only a few seconds. So while it may survive 8A for more than 30 seconds, who knows when you leave it on for longer.

With that being said, I love his crash tests and have it bookmarked and I want to see people breaking records! What’s the highest amps in an XM-L2 or even XP-G2 light that someone has ever gone? I mean I think 7A would be the highest with ryan here going to push his K50 to that level.

Yup, according to Cree’s datasheet for the XM-L2, it supposedly has an unlimited life span at its rated specs:

We all know that’s not true when we push our LED’s to 3x their rated current, and the previous gen LED’s are rated for 50,000 hours, which translates to 5.70 years.

Hopefully we can find a sweet spot between 5.70 years and insta-poof.

@aoeu

I don’t think it would be hard to beat with active cooling! Even submerge the heatsink in iced water will keep the temps down easily. Purely for experimental purposes!

What I have in my mind is setting up the K50 to a ridiculously high level 7-8A but only use it for bragging rights. Even with my modded K40 or TN31, Level 3 out of 6 is bright enough for me for “normal” uses.

@DBCstm

I’m running my TK61 at 7.15A with the de-domed XM-L2 U2 1A. I don’t have it properly focused, got tired of working on it to be truthful, and it’s doing 541 Kcd.

Thanks for chiming in Dale. I’m not sure if a K50 can beat the TK61 when both modded to their max potential (7.0 - 7.5A) because the TK61 has a slightly bigger reflector. I couldn’t make up my mind but I decided on the K50 because if its superior build and stunning fins. Should definitely help with the heat.

You’re one of the people who say that the hot-knife deodming method yields better tints than the gasoline method. Interesting, I’d love to get to the bottom of this.

[ryansoh3]

@itsonlyme

You have mistaken what the “unlimited floor life” means. That refers to the storage of the chip itself before it is sold to a customer.

For example, the food in your fridge has a limited shelf life, after that, it starts to degrade generally.

Thanks for pointing that out, I didn’t realize what floor life meant!

[JaredM]

5 YEAR REVIVAL (so yes, I’m aware)

I’d create a new thread but inevitably anyone chiming in likely would be referring back to this on.

Question to all out there who have driver design knowledge or direct experience with this series of drivers — do we know how to raise the output voltage limit of the 3V versions to run 6V leds?

Backstory:

I have an old TN31 that I’m refreshing and determining if I’m going to sell, mod, or just return to the shelf. I’d like to try an SST70 in the TN31 and see how I like it compared to other Osrams and Luminus options. I’ve resistor modded mine long ago - shorted with a copper tab - and have 16 or 18awg short wires ran to the stock MCPCB. Back then I didn’t have the equipment I do now, so I never knew how hard it was running. It’s got a revived XML2 (oooldd 3D T6 dedomed and with repaired bond wires) that’s been installed forever now and I have a hard time letting go of because I’ve never had a Cree dedome tint come out like that again (probably BBL at 4000K) I’m seeing a fairly stable 9A on mode 6, 6A on m5, and ~3.3A on m4. I’m getting a maximum of 340kcd measured indoors at 5m. Reflector tuning is optimal in these conditions when unscrewed 1/8th of a turn. I read of others getting upwards of 400 and some (hard to believe IMO) 500kcd from these lights with old XML2s or SST40s. So I’m going to try a number of emitters once I receive them… SST70-sd (really the reason for all of this), SST40-dd, SST20-dd, SST-20W, Osram WF1 and WF2 will all be tried. I’ll report my findings in the future…

And back to the question topic:

During my testing recently, I found that the driver actually seems like it controls to consistent output voltages when connected to various Vf LEDs. BTW, my version has a single n-channel fet near the sense resistors. I’ve only tested three setups so far, but current ranged from 6.2A with a single XPL-HI to 10A with a Triple XPL-HD. As mentioned before, the XML2 was running 9A. Max voltage in these cases at the driver output was 3.90V. Interestingly, each mode down drops almost a perfect 300mV. As most others who have tried will know, it won’t light an XHP50 at all. Not even a glow or flicker.

There must be something simple that’s different between this and the TN30 (9Vf) and 6V MTG2 variants. There have been a few mentions of voltage dividers and I notice there’s what looks like a large orange zener diode on the TN30 driver pictured in this thread. The good news here is that I have a K40M here as well, I just haven’t had the time to crack into it again yet and do some comparisons. I will be determined to figure this out and will contribute what I can here. Hoping there are others out there who still are fond of these classic, modest super-throwers.